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Wisconsin Section, American Association of Physics Teachers Minutes of the Annual Business Meeting October 28, 2006, at UW – Marathon, Wausau, WI
After a fantastic talk on the Physics of Chocolate (and after Theo gave us all delicious chocolate bars, although it was right before lunch!), we wandered through the halls of the main UWMC building for a while until we finally found the Terrace Room! Even before Theo or Matt arrived, Erik said it was okay for everyone to start eating (how bold!). The meeting/lunch room had a lovely view of the beautiful fall colors of this northern Wisconsin campus. While munching on our savory meal, we began addressing the following agenda items...
Meeting Start Time: 12:51 pm (twenty-four minutes early!). President Matt Evans presiding. His first order of business was to warn us all that he has never understood nor followed Robert’s Rules. So, away we went!
1. Minutes of the last meeting (October 29th, 2005) – Erik Hendrickson Motion to accept the minutes as distributed was made by Joe Zoller, seconded by Theo Koupelis. Motion passed unanimously by a voice vote.
2. Treasurer’s Report for 2005-6 – Erik Hendrickson Please see the full text, including a nice graph, of Erik’s Report, but a few items were highlighted… A. It was reported that our 1-yr CD earned $95.72 last year. Expenses were described briefly. B. Motion to accept the printed treasurer’s report as distributed made by Mark Larchez, seconded by Judy Schmidt. The report was accepted with no objection.
3. Section Representative’s Report – Jim Mallmann Please see the full text of Jim’s Report, but he highlighted a few items… A. Jim pointed out the 12 good suggestions/reasons for hosting a local section meeting. He especially encouraged us to consider inviting national AAPT officers to our future meetings. B. Another call for participation: There are still many openings on a variety of different national committees (see handout for entire list). Please contact Jim if you are interested in serving on any of these. He will provide you with a Nomination and Volunteer Form and nominate you, if you wish, or you could self-nominate. More info on the different committees can also be found on the AAPT website and in the Announcer. You can also contact the chair of the national nominating committee to get you name of the list. C. Encouraged members to consider participating in the Activity Based Physics Faculty Institutes. D. Mentioned that there are lots of benefits to becoming a member of AAPT. For more details, talk to Jim. E. The members present congratulated Jim on becoming the Chair of his Department. F. Motion to accept the report as distributed was made by Judy Schmidt, seconded by David Tamres. Motion passed unanimously by a voice vote.
4. High School Representative’s Report – Judy Schmidt Please see the full text of Judy’s Report, but she highlighted a few items… A. Gave a plug for activity-based physics, as mentioned previously by Jim. B. The “Physics First” movement is still being hotly debated at the national meetings. How does it fit in with middle school physical science? How does it fit in with the testing schedule of NCLB? Can you do “real” physics at the 9th-grade level? What is the definition of “real” physics? PhysTEC is helping non-physics people get prepared to teach. The AAPT Teacher Preparation Committee has lots of good ideas for the preparation of high school teachers. She will keep us updated on this very interesting topic. C. NCLB is trying to create a situation where 3 years (not just 2 years) will be required at all state schools. In 6 years, all students will be required to pass a state science exam. Questions arise: How much over-the-top dedication can we expect from the teachers currently out there? We will need more teachers, but are DPI and PI-34 helping? Mark Lattery explained that he uses a grid (that he would happily share) to help his physics education students get through college in 5 years. What about Professional Development Plans? Are these “graded” with check-off lists or actual reviews? How will these “grades” be tied to salaries? What about creating a blog for discussions on high school certification? Suggestion was made to use the wapt-d discussion list. Wayne Swanger (UW – Oshkosh) has given a report on needs for teachers. Can WAPT keep track of high school positions/openings and future college graduates? Then we could occasionally provide updates/summaries to the group. We need to do some advertising via the WAPT e-mail list to get more people involved in the discussion. D. A suggestion was made to invite a DPI representative to future WAPT meetings. E. Motion to accept the report as distributed was made by Gary Baier, seconded by Mike LeDocq. Motion passed unanimously by a voice vote.
5. Two-Year College Representative’s Report – Roger Hanke Again, please see Roger’s full written report, what follows are his highlights… A. Big changes are coming for two-year associates degrees at Wisconsin’s technical colleges. One of the new requirements is that of the 21-30 credits of general studies courses, 3 of these must be either math or science. In addition, in order for a course to be in the general studies list, it had to be on the state-approved list. This list originally only included 1 physics course. This allowed technical colleges to start to reduce the number of programs requiring physics (and make cuts in physics instructors). Roger called a state meeting to address this issue, and 2 new physics courses were added to the state-approved list. Since that time, several other new physics courses were added to the list, as well. For descriptions of these courses, please see: www.curriculumbank.org. B. Please find several other items on the written report. C. Motion to accept the report as distributed was made by Jim Mallmann, seconded by Roy Knispel. Motion passed unanimously by a voice vote.
6. Committee Reports a) Awards Committee – Paul Nevin did not attend, so Nathan Miller co-reported with Matt Evans Four different awards were given out this year: Judy Schmidt: Lifetime Achievement Gubbi Sudhakaran, UW – LaCrosse: Excellence in Teaching of Physics at the College Level Mark Lattery, UW – Oshkosh: Service to the Teaching of Physics at the High School Level Mike Jackson, UW – LaCrosse: Innovation in the Teaching of Physics Thunderous applause for all!! Our apologies, but the plaques are “in the mail”. We will send them out ASAP! If you think there’s someone deserving out there, make sure to share this with Matt Evans, who will be the Chair of the Awards Committee next year (one of the duties of being Past President). In Matt’s ever-increasing unawareness of Robert’s Rules, he asked for this report to be accepted by the membership. So, a motion to accept the report as given was made by Ruth Howes, seconded by Matt Evans. Motion passed unanimously by a voice vote b) Publications Committee –Joe Zoller Will be addressed in New Business. c) Workshops Committee – Matt Evans & Theo Koupelis There were lots of good workshops this year! All were well-attended. Matt & Theo asked for all of us to think about new workshops for the future. When we know these ahead of time, we can really get some targeted advertising out there. Matt asked for (and received) a motion to accept this report, as well. Theo Koupelis made the motion, Alan Scott seconded, and the motion passed unanimously by a voice vote.
7. Old Business After introducing the idea (and getting it passed at last year’s meeting), Erik Hendrickson announced that next year WAPT will give out ten “1st year awards” to the first 10 people who register for their first WAPT meeting ever. For people who are driving to the meeting and need lodging, these awards will give the person $50. For local attendees, the award will cover the cost of the meeting (dues, lunch, etc.). Make sure to advertise this on the Registration Form! Invite new people from your schools to attend and sign up for this perk.
8. Future Meeting Sites 2007: Marquette University, October 26 & 27 Thanks Ruth!!! MSOE mentioned that they may be able to step in, if needed. 2008: UW – Stout? UW – Eau Claire (back-up plan)? Chippewa Falls High School (although it would need to be 2 weeks earlier than normal to fit into the northern half of the state’s school break)? No one would commit. 2009: UW – Whitewater (tentatively). 2010: UW – River Falls, October 29 & 30 2011: UW – Stevens Point (we were told to pencil this into the schedule, but the word “promise” was also used)? 2012: UW – Eau Claire (their turn in the 10-year cycle)? This would depend upon if WAPT wanted to have back-to-back-to-back meetings in a similar part of the state or not. Anyone else want to chime in as the host during some of these years?
9. New Business A. State of Publications Committee Really want to help high school physics teachers plan. Make it more personal. Want to reactivate WisPhys. Rename the committee Promotion/Publication? The members of the committee could really help us promote the meetings and publications. This past year, Matt spent an enormous amount of time getting the e-mail addresses of all o f the 600+ licensed physics teachers in the state into a usable format. Strongly encourage a newsletter of some type. Motion: Change the name of the Publications Committee to the Publication/Promotion Committee. Drop the previous requirement where one member must be from UW – River Falls. Elect a chair (3 year position), and make sure there is at least one high school representative and at least one 2-year institution representative. Ruth Howes made the motion, Joe Zoller seconded the motion, and the motion was approved by a voice vote. B. Professional Development for High School Teachers Want to develop a task force to look into how to promote the WAPT meeting better. Gary Baier volunteered to lead this group. He will also create a summary for dissemination on the wapt-d. Another thing we can do: Collect and share info on all of the different professional development opportunities that are out there for high school teachers. Examples include MAPS (in Milwaukee), Fox Valley has a Share Group (contact Scott Hertting, Neenah High School, shertting@neenah.k12.wi.us), Stevens Point has a group. Have WAPT members advertise the benefits of coming to WAPT meetings at these groups! It would be nice to be able to put all of these group meetings on a calendar to send out to WAPT members, as well. C. New Term Lengths – Constitutional Change Motion: Change the lengths of the terms of the following officer positions: Section Representative – 3-year term (instead of a 2-year term) Secretary/Treasurer – 3-year term (instead of a 1-year term) High School Representative – 2-year term (instead of a 1-year term) Two-Year College Representative – 2-year term (instead of a 1-year term) The rationale behind the changes in this motion is to let each of these elected representatives have a chance to get a little more comfortable with their duties before a new person might step in. The motion was made by Matt Evans, seconded by Melissa Vigil, and passed on a voice vote.
10. Elections Workshops Committee – High School Representative (3-year term): Kevin Hugo He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Matt Evans and seconded by Theo Koupelis. Workshops Committee – College Representative (2-year term): Mark Lattery He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Matt Evans and seconded by Roy Knispel. Workshops Committee – College Representative (3-year term): Greg Martin He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Theo Koupelis and seconded by Roger Hanke. Publications Committee – Chair (3-year term): Theo Koupelis He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Ruth Howes and seconded by Judy Schmidt. Publications Committee – High School Representative (3-year term): Joe Zoller He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Matt Evans and seconded by David Tamres. Publications Committee – High School Representative (2-year term): Judy/Earl They were elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Matt Evans and seconded by Ruth Howes. It looks like this will be a joint position for the next year. Publications Committee – College Representative (3-year term): Mark Lattery He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Matt Evans and seconded by Ruth Howes. Publications Committee – College Representative (2-year term): Bill Welch He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Joe Zoller and seconded by Matt Evans. Awards Committee – High School Representative (2-year term): Paul Nevin He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Matt Evans and seconded by Steve Meyer. Vice President, Program Chair, for 2007: Melissa Vigil She was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Ruth Howes and seconded by Matt Evans. A loud uproar if clapping ensued! Thank you, Melissa & Marquette!! President: Theo Koupelis He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Matt Evans and seconded by everyone in attendance. Secretary/Treasurer (3-year term): Erik Hendrickson He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Matt Evans and seconded by everyone in attendance. High School Representative (2-year term): Judy Schmidt (with Gary Baier as her understudy) They were elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Matt Evans and seconded by Melissa Vigil. Two-Year College Representative (2-year term): Roger Hanke He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Ruth Howes and seconded by Jim Mallmann. Section Representative (3-year term): Jim Mallmann He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Judy Schmidt and seconded by everyone in attendance.
11. Closing Remarks & Adjournment The following motion was made by Erik Hendrickson and seconded by Matt Evans: A big THANK YOU to Theo Koupelis for an absolutely AMAZING MEETING!!! The motion unanimously passed, as I could attest from the thunderously loud clapping of hands and stomping of feet!
The following motion was made by Theo Koupelis and seconded by Erik Hendrickson: A big “Thank You!” to Matt Evans for running such an efficient Business Meeting! This motion unanimously passed, as well.
!!!See everyone in Milwaukee next year!!!
The meeting ended at 2:29 pm (Whew!). Of course, conversations continued well into the afternoon (the clean-up crew had to kick a few of us out), and hopefully more conversations carried on throughout the year…
Respectfully submitted,
Erik Hendrickson Secretary/Treasurer
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